The Seventh Scroll

where he lay. Mek glanced to his right to the to make sure that the

three others were moving in gap where Salim could take them out with a

single burst;

sight in the entre of the then he settled the pip of his fore

using his belt buckle as an RPD machine gunner's belly, aiming mark, and

fired a tap of three The AKM rode up viciously and the triple detonation

stung his eardrums, but Mek saw his bullets strike, stitching a row up

the man's torso. One hit low in the belly, the second in the diaphragm

and the third at the base of his throat. He spun around, his arms

flinging out and jerking, and then crashed over backwards, out of sight

in the underbrush.

All around Mek his men were firing. He wondered, how many of them Salim

had taken with that first burst, but there was no longer anything to

see. The enemy were all down in cover. A faint haze of gunsmoke blued

the air as they returned fire, and the scrub trembled and shook to the

recoil and the muzzle blast of their weapons.

Then, in the uproar of fire, in the whine and wail of ricochets off the

rocks, one of them began to scream.

"I am hit. In Allah's name, help me." His cries rang eerily across the

hillside, and the enemy fire slackened perceptibly. Mek clipped a fresh

magazine on to the AKM.

"Sing, little bird. Sing!the muttered grimly.

t required the combined strength of Nicholas, Hansith and eight other

men to lift the lid off the stone sarcophagus. Staggering under its

weight, they laid it carefully against the wall of the tomb. Then Royan

and Nicholas stood on the plinth of the sarcophagus to look down into

the interior.

Fitted neatly into the stone receptacle was an enormous wooden coffin.

Its lid too was in the form of the reclining Pharaoh. He was in the

posture of death with his hands crossed at his breast, clutching the

flail and the crook. The coffin was gilded and encrusted with

semiprecious stones. The expression on the face of the king's effigy was

serene.

They lifted the coffin out of the sarcophagus, and its weight was less

than that of the stone lid, Carefully Nicholas split the golden seals

and the layer of hard dried

01 . Within it they resin that held the lid of the coffin in plac ctly,

and when the found another coffin, fitted perfe  as revealed. It was

like a ened that yet another coffin wOP

nest of Russian dolls, one within the other, becoming smaller with each

revelation. coffins, each of them'

In the end there were seven mate and richly decorated than the

progressively more  previous one. The seventh coffin was only slightly

larger I than a man, and it was made of gold. The polished metal caught

the light of the lamps like a thousand mirrors and  the tomb.

threw bright arrows and darts into every recess  coffin they When at

last they opened the golden inner found that it was filled with flowers.

The blooms had dried and faded, so their colour was sepia. Their scent

had long ago evaporated, so that only the musky aroma of great age

wafted up from the coffin. The petals were so dry and apery that they

crumbled at the first touch. Beneath the  faded blooms was a layer of

the finest linen; once it must have been snowy white, but now it was

brown with age the flowers. Through the and the stain of the juices from

soft folds they saw once again the gleam of gold.

standing on either side of the coffin, Nicholas and Royan peeled back

the linen mesh. It crackled softly and but as it came  tore like tissue

paper und  their fingers, away they both involuntarily gasped with

wonder as the as only fraction ask of Pharaoh was revealed. It  death-

man, but it was a perfect ally larger than the head of a it. Pharaoh's

features had been pre, image in every deta ty in this extraordinary work

of art.

served for all eterni ed in silent wonder into the obsidian and rock

They star crystal eyes of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh gazed back at them sadly,

almost accusingly it was a long time before either of them could summon

the head thecourag6 and presumption to lift it away from  did so, they

found further of the mummy. But when the

evidence that in antiquity the body of the king and that of his general,

Tanus, had been changed. The mummy that lay before them was obviously

too large for the coffin that contained it. It had been partially

unwrapped, and cramped into the interior.

"A royal mummy would have had hundreds of charrns and amulets placed

beneath the wrappings," Royan whispered . "This is the plainly dressed

corpse of a nobleman and not that of the king."

Nicholas gently lifted the inner layer of bandage away from the dead

head and a thick coil- of braided hair was revealed.

"The portraits of Pharaoh Mamose on the walls of the arcade show that

his head hair was dyed with henna," Nicholas murmured. "Look at this."

The braid was the colour of the winter grasses of the African savannah,

gold and silver.

"There can be no doubt now. This is the body of Tanus. The friend of

Taita and the lover of the queen."

"Yes," Royan agreed, her eyes soft with tears. "He is the true father of

Lostris's son, who became in his time the Pharaoh Tamose and the

forefather of a great line of kings.

So this is the man whose blood runs through the history of ancient

Egypt."

"In his way he was as great as any Pharaoh," Nicholas said quietly.

t was Royan who roused herself first. "The river!'

aT

she cried, with a razor edge to her voice. "We cannot let all this go

again, when the river rises."

"Neither can we hope to save all of it. There is too much. A great mass

of treasure. Our time here has almost run out, so we must pick out the

most beautiful and important pieces and pack them into the crates. Lord

alo'the knows if we even have time for that."

So they worked in a frenzy in the short time that was left to them. They

could not even think about saving the eapons, the statues and the

murals, the furniture and the  banqueting. utensils and the wardrobes of

costumes. The great golden chariot must stand where it had stood for

four thousand years, They removed the golden death'mask from over

Tanus's head, but they left his mummy in the innermost of the golden

coffins. Then Nicholas sent for Mai Metemma. The old abbot came with

twenty of his monks to receive the lie of the ancient saint that he had

been promised holy re as his reward. Reverentially, chanting deep and

slow, they bore Tanus's coffin away to its new resting place in the

maqdas of the monastery. ect,"

"At least the old hero will be treated with resP Royan said softly. Then

she looked around the tomb. "We cannot leave the site like this, with

the coffins thrown Royan protested. "it looks as about and the lids

discarded, though grave-robbers have been at work here."

"Grave-robbers is exactly what we are." Nicholas smiled at her.

tly, "and we

"No, we are archaeologists," she denied ho must try to act like it." ing

coffins one within So they replaced the six remain the other, laid them

back in the great sarcophagus, and finally replaced the massive stone

lid. Only then did Royan allow them to begin selecting and packing the